


Tatting Tale

by chlodobird



Series: The Dragon of Hell's Kitchen [6]
Category: Daredevil (TV), Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Crochet, Fluff, Gen, Human Disaster Matt Murdock, Knitting, Peter Parker Acts Like a Spider, Precious Peter Parker, i love that its an actual tag
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-21
Updated: 2020-04-21
Packaged: 2021-03-02 01:53:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,040
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23767225
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chlodobird/pseuds/chlodobird
Summary: Peter picks up some new hobbies! Meanwhile, the Nelson & Murdock office isn't quite sure what an intern is actually for, but they're very proud of Peter's new yarn-ey talents.
Relationships: Matt Murdock & Franklin "Foggy" Nelson & Karen Page, Matt Murdock & Peter Parker
Series: The Dragon of Hell's Kitchen [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1660564
Comments: 27
Kudos: 605





	Tatting Tale

Matt tilted his head and stopped reviewing his case. There had been a weirdly rhythmic noise that sounded like . . . yarn? It had been happening in the main office area for the better part of thirty minutes. Foggy and Karen were both busy with the case, which left . . . 

He called into the other room, “Hey, Peter? What the fuck are you doing?”

“I’m knitting,” the teen said absentmindedly. He didn’t bother to raise his voice. “Karen said there was nothing much I could do to help right now. This happened a couple times last week and I wanted something to do with my hands. This is what Aunt May suggested.”

“Huh,” Matt said to himself. He got up, curiosity getting the better of him, and wandered into the main office space, where Peter was sitting. “What are you making?”

The teen sounded proud when he held up the yarn and sticks- no wait, needles. “It’s a hat! Or, well it’s going to be.”

Matt raised his eyebrows. “Can I feel? Or will the yarn come out?”

Peter nodded excitedly. “Here! This is what I’ve got so far!” He pressed the fabric into Matt’s hand, and he stifled his surprise.

It was actually a hat. The thick yarn was scratchy under his fingers, probably acrylic, but Peter was  _ making _ a hat. “This is really cool,” he told Peter. “You like doing it?”

“Yeah! I think I might try crochet after this. May says it’s good to know both, because they’re useful for different kinds of things, but that she doesn’t know how to crochet, so I figured I’d learn this first.”

“Well, I’m impressed,” Matt told him. “Good luck with the hat!”

He went back to his desk, and grinned down at the case files. The rhythmic tapping of the needles slipped into the background and provided another consistent filter for the world. It reminded him a little of a heartbeat. Every once in a while, Peter paused to count under his breath, and the satisfied thump of his heartbeat told Matt that he was doing just fine.

It took Peter less than a week to come into work wearing a hat that Matt assumed was the one he’d been working on. He grinned and gave the teen a thumbs up. “Nice hat!”

“Thanks!” Judging by Peter’s tone of voice, Matt was pretty sure he was beaming.

Peter was busy helping Karen with an influx of new cases for a little while, but soon, he was back to his yarn. Matt leaned on the frame of the doorway and asked, “So what’s this one?”

“I’m crocheting a scarf,” Peter said happily. “Aunt May was right, this is fun. I played with different kinds of stitches over the weekend, and I’m trying out this wave pattern. Here, feel.”

He held the scarf out to Matt, who took it and traced the line of stitches. Shit, the teenager was really good at this. The stitches felt pretty consistent, even if the yarn was rough. Peter was using a thinner yarn this time, too.

“I’m impressed,” Matt said truthfully. “I have no idea how you get the yarn in the right place to make the stick do the knots.”

“I could teach you if you want?” Peter offered.

“Nah, I don’t like the texture. Thanks though. You enjoy your scarf!”

Peter nodded and got back to it. He had a finished scarf even faster than the hat.

Matt complimented it, just like the last thing Peter made, but then things started to get out of control.

Peter brought a ball of yarn on patrol.

“Hey!” he said, when Matt commented on it. “There’s plenty of nights with some downtime in between muggings and shit.”

Except then, of course, when they had a break later that night, he sat dead still on the rooftop. In Matt’s radar, the teen was an unsettling still spot that would have blended in with the rooftop if not for his breathing and heartbeat.

He tilted his head at Peter, but didn’t say anything, and resolved to do some spider research when he got home. Who knows what he picked up from that spider besides strength, senses, and reflexes?

Turns out spiders just wait on their webs for prey without moving.

When he shared his findings with Foggy, he shuddered. “Damnit, Matt, now when he sits still in the office I’ll only be able to think about spiders. Ew.”

A few months of various knitting and crochet projects passed, and one day in the office Peter sighed and announced, “I’m bored of this. It’s not enough.”

Matt tilted his head and left his office to go chat with Peter. This was going to be weird, he could feel it in his bones.

“What’s not enough?”

“Knitting. Crochet. It’s not complex enough,” Peter determined. “I still like it, because it’s good to have something to do with my hands that doesn’t take much thought while I’m in school, but it’s too simple for when I don’t have anything else to focus on. There’s some lacy patterns, especially for crochet, but those are still pretty simple.”

Matt held out his hand, and Peter put a finished piece in it.

Shit.

“This is  _ simple _ ?” Matt asked, gobsmacked.

It was- well, he wasn’t really sure. He poked around in it, trying to figure out the pattern. It was crochet, almost definitely, but it was pretty lacy.

“It’s a shawl, for Aunt May,” Peter said casually.

“This is really amazing, Peter.”

He hmphed, and Matt raised an eyebrow at him. “If you really want something more complex to do, why not try your hand at making actual lace, instead of lacy crochet?” 

Was that even possible to do by hand without a bunch of fancy materials? Was it possible at all by hand? Would Peter be able to do it? To be fair, he had a frankly astonishing amount of skill with yarn.

It didn’t matter. At Matt’s suggestion, Peter’s heartbeat jumped, and his voice lit up. “You’re right!” He dug out his phone and tapped away at it. “There’s tutorials online! Thanks!”

“No worries. Have fun,” Matt said. Peter was already immersed in the video, so Matt slipped back into his office.

Hopefully that would keep Peter busy for a little while.

The teen had already started a circle of lace by the next time he was working in the office. Matt stopped by his chair as usual to ask how he was doing with it.

“Amazing,” Peter gushed. “There’s this thing called tatting, and when I told Ned about it, he just asked if I was getting tattoos, which, would that even work with my advanced healing? But uh, yeah. Tatting. I’m doing shuttle tatting right now, because I stopped by a craft store after school, and it’s so awesome!”

Matt grinned at him. “Glad you’re enjoying it. Let me know when it’s done, okay? I’m excited to see how it turns out.”

The odd rhythm of the tatting faded into the background, just like every time Peter tried a new pattern in his yarn crafts. Soon, Matt was immersed in his case files.

Matt forgot about the tatting, in the following weeks. The office had a series of important cases, and it slipped to the back of his mind.

Peter remembered, though. One day, about a month after the introduction of shuttle tatting, he came up to Matt sitting at his desk with a proud heartbeat and something in his hands.

The lace.

“You finished?”

Peter nodded, and held it out. Matt took it and actually gasped.

“Holy  _ shit _ , Peter. This is incredible.”

“Haha, it is holey! Because it’s full of holes!” Peter snickered. Still, there was an undertone of relief in his voice.

As if Matt would ever be unimpressed with Peter’s fiber crafts.

“Peter, this is amazing. Have the others seen?”

He shook his head. “Just Aunt May and you.”

Matt traced the knots and loops and shook his head in wonder. Peter had to be so fucking patient to do something like this, even if he came off as bouncy and impatient.

He handed the lace back and followed Peter into the main office space. “Foggy! Come on out here!”

Karen got up and walked over to them curiously. “Peter, is that what you’ve been working on for ages?”

“Yep! Lace!” he said proudly, holding it out.

She leaned in, and her heartbeat spiked. “Peter, fucking hell. That’s amazing, you’ve been working at it this whole time?”

“I did a couple smaller practice ones first.”

Foggy walked into the room, and Matt could tell when he noticed the lace because his heartbeat sped up just like Karen’s. “You made  _ lace _ ?”

“It’s no biggie,” Peter shrugged, but Matt heard the happiness in his voice at the praise.

“My mom tried making lace once and she gave up after she wound up with a snarled up mess. She said it was incredibly hard.” Foggy walked closer, and whistled quietly. “Shit, that’s so big and detailed, too.”

They raved over Peter’s work for another five minutes before a client walked in, and Karen proudly showed off the lace to them before hearing a word.

That evening, on patrol, the right breeze drifted through the air that Matt heard something familiar.

The sound of air through woven threads with gaps.

Matt processed for a moment, trying to figure out what exactly caught his attention in the flood of sensory information, and once he realized, he started up an internal stream of curses and dug out his phone.

“You said crochet was too simple, but you wanted something to do with your hands?” Matt said, without preamble.

“Um, yeah?” Peter responded. “Whatcha need? I’m procrastinating on an essay about Macbeth, so I have all the time in the world to help you with whatever it is.”

“No, it’s just- I realized that when you’re making lace, you’re spinning some goddamn webs.”

The line went silent.

Matt waited on the teen’s response, and smirked when he heard a few swears muttered under Peter’s breath.

“My aunt is never going to let me live this down,” he finally said. “She already thinks it’s hilarious that I’ve started really liking soup.”

“So, would now be a bad time to mention that whenever you’re waiting around for something, you stand still, like a spider waiting for prey?”

“Shit!” Peter said empathetically. “Am I going to grow extra fucking eyes? How spidery am I going to get?”

“You’re probably just getting some spider tendencies,” Matt offered cluelessly. “I mean, I did some spider research after I noticed the stillness thing, and it’s not like you’ve got eight eyes or venom or anything.”

“Oh, god, how do I know? What if I do? What if I bite someone and they die?”

Matt stifled a laugh, and very seriously said, “I guess you shouldn’t bite anyone then.”

“I’m going to go run some fucking tests, holy shit. Lace? Webs? Oh my god.”

“Relax, it’s a harmless hobby. Don’t get so worried about it. We all love seeing what you make, and all the scarves and hats and mittens and socks you’ve foisted upon us vigilantes have been much appreciated. Or, they will be, once it’s winter and not May.”

Peter sighed. “Okay. I’m still going to check if I have venom.”

He called Matt the next day in the middle of the morning, horror in his voice. “I’m fucking venemous, Matt!”

“So, again, just don’t bite anyone,” he replied, trying (and mostly failing) to keep amusement out of his voice. “Not complicated.”

“Okay,” he said reluctantly. “You think I should stop making lace?”

Matt remembered the pride Peter had when he showed off the results of his hard work, and shook his head. “I think you should keep going. You make some really impressive stuff.”

He could hear the smile when Peter agreed. “You’re right. There’s this new pattern I was looking at, where I can make it so that-”

Matt leaned back in his chair and listened to Peter ramble about tatting patterns. So what if it was a creepy spider mutation thing? It was amazing, and Peter had fun with it.

But seriously, the spider traits were so fucking unsettling.

**Author's Note:**

> His spider genes make peter want to spin webs so he resorts to fiber arts. Hell yeah. I’ve been planning this since I wrote the first fic with peter in it and I finally have the energy to do it. This was so fucking fun.


End file.
